Mind Betrays Heart
by 7RedCards
Summary: Ashley's mind and her heart once made her decisions for her. She relied on them to help her make decisions in perfect sync. But one night she found out just how fragile that link really was...


**I recently started watching Until Dawn playthroughs and a certain character's death at the hands of his crush (indirectly) inspired me to make this. Enjoy!**

Before that fateful night, Ashley's mind and heart were perfectly in sync. Her heart and brain made her choices in unison, always agreeing with one another instantly. It was her heart and mind-together-that decided that she loved Chris. It was her heart and mind together that decided to help Hannah get her tattoo (although, at the time, Ashley hadn't known it was supposed to get Mike's attention). It was her heart and mind together that decided to come to the party and let Chris drink himself to passing out.

But it was that same night that the link between her heart and brain showed just how fragile it truly was. Her mind told her to assist in humiliating Hannah while her heart insisted that she help Sam find Hannah and warn her. Ashley, confused at the time about the sudden glitch in her heart/brain link, followed her brain.

And that made the guilt at Hannah and Beth's disappearance so...much...worse...

For the next 11 months, she could barely sleep. Whenever she did sleep, her mind was invaded by visions of the fear, humiliation, and hurt in Hannah's eyes. The same eyes that quickly flicked between everyone in the room's grinning faces. From Mike...to Emily...to Jess...to Mike...and, finally, to her. Hannah's eyes seemed to bore into her soul. And then, she would hear Hannah's voice whisper a single word.

"Why...?" And then Ashley would sit up in her bed, tears streaking down her face and sweat running down her forehead. Finally, she vowed to follow her heart first, not her brain.

But a month later, she found out that her heart doesn't have all the answers.

Fear still courses through her veins when she remembers seeing the gun in Chris's hand, the barrel pointing at her face. Even as she begged and pleaded and cried, Chris's eyes held only one function: self preservation. And then the gun went off. Looking back, she swears to Sam that her hearts stopped for a second until she realized that she was, in fact, alive. Even as she saw the maniac take off his mask and reveal himself to be Josh, the image of Chris's face and the gun repeated in her head like a broken record.

For a while, the thought disappeared. Her heart decided, and she agreed, that she could forgive Chris. But her brain nonetheless acknowledged that Chris hadn't even apologized.

And then, just a few minutes later, Chris ran to the door, the stranger gone and the Wendigo chasing him. He banged on the door.

"Ash! Open the door, it's right behind me!" He shouted. Ashley, focusing on what her heart wanted, reached for the doorknob. And then she made a big mistake. She looked up. She saw the fear, the desperation in Chris's eyes, and wondered morbidly if that was anything like what her face showed. And then, she realized it: the roles had been switched. Her brain overrode her heart, feeding her information to fuel her rage.

 _He would've shot you. It doesn't matter that it fired blanks, if it hadn't you'd be dead. You can get your revenge! HERE AND NOW!_ All of this happened within a single second.

"A-Ash? Wh-wh-what're you doing?!" Chris asked as she slowly backed away from the door. The image of Chris's face and the gun in his hand ran through her head again. As sick as it was, she felt a rush of satisfaction as she saw Chris's head get sliced off.

But as Mike walked over and saw Chris's head, the eyes wide and the mouth open, the reality of what she had just done stabbed into her brain and heart.

Chris was gone. And he wasn't coming back. Ever.

Now, sitting in the room of her house, she looks down at the last photo that they took together. Both of them smiling as if they wouldn't rather be anywhere else. And she realizes...Chris still had loved her. Even as he pointed the gun at her, he had basically confessed that he loved her. Had she still loved him? She can't answer. She sighs and lays down, closing her eyes and hugging the picture.

"I love you..." She whispers.

 **I like how this turned out! Tell me if you'd like to see another with Mike and Jessica, Matt and Emily, or Sam and Josh!**


End file.
